The Patriots' Club

25

It was a run-down, smelly apartment. One bedroom, a living room, and a bath, the kind of dilapidated quarters she’d seen in the Times in its “Neediest Cases” articles. Jennifer Dance sat in the center of the sagging single bed and crossed her legs. She had to pee, but she couldn’t get herself to set foot in the bathroom. The door was open, revealing a peeling linoleum floor and some rotting wood beneath it. The toilet was circa 1930, right down to the chain flush and cracked wooden toilet seat. A plumber’s helper sat on the floor next to it. The abrasive odor of bleach and ammonia drifted into the bedroom. Somehow it made her find the place even grungier.

Jenny could deal with mess and stink. The johns at school weren’t a whole lot better. Just last week, some wise guy had set his business afloat on a raft of toilet paper, squirted an entire can of lighter fluid on it, and lit it. “Just like crêpes suzette,” they’d caught him boasting in the hallway.

What bothered Jenny were the cockroaches, which were numerous and straight out of central casting. She craned her neck for a look and caught a shadow flickering beneath the flooring, and then another a few inches away.

Voices carried from the living room. Jenny tilted her head, trying to pick up a word or two. Who were these people? First, they spirited her out of school with the threat that she would never see Thomas again if she didn’t come right then and there, and now they told her to shut up, sit tight, and do as she was told. She didn’t know if she was being protected or held prisoner.

“Keep the curtains closed,” the woman had said when Jenny arrived. “Stay away from the window.”

Jenny wondered about the orders. They certainly weren’t to keep her from learning where she was. She was in Brooklyn, the Williamsburg section. There was no secret about that. She’d been driven over in a clunky Volvo; her, the rough-looking guy who’d taken her from school, and the driver, a curly-haired, unshaven man of fifty who had given her a very weird smile. No names. Never a hint as to their identity, or what they wanted with her. No, Jenny decided, the curtains weren’t to keep her from looking out. They were to keep others from looking in.

The two men were in the other room right now with the woman. The woman was the boss. Jenny had no doubt about that either. She stormed around the room like a besieged general planning her retreat, and the others were sure to give her leeway. She was tall and thin, her face pinched, forever concentrating, the eyes locked on a different plane. She wore her black hair in a ponytail and dressed like a college student in jeans, a white oxford shirt that she kept untucked, and Converse tennis shoes. It was her drive that frightened Jenny. One look, and you shared her resolve, whatever it was.

Apart from the warning to stay away from the window, she hadn’t said a word to Jenny. She had, however, given her a fierce once-over. One look up and down, the whole thing lasting maybe a second, but it was more invasive than a strip search.

A door slammed. A new set of footsteps pounded down the hall.

Jenny got up from the bed and pressed her ear to the door. She recognized the woman’s voice. It was calm and urgent at the same time. “They what?” she demanded. “They’re desperate.” Then, in a much softer voice altogether: “Is he all right?”

Before Jenny could hear the answer, the door opened inward, forcing Jenny back a step.

“We have to leave,” said the woman.

“Where are we going? Is Thomas all right? Was it him you were talking about?” It was Jenny’s turn to demand. She backed into the center of the room and stood with her arms crossed over her breasts. But if she was expecting a fight, all she got was a postponement to another day.

“Hurry,” the woman said. “Our presence has been noted.”

“Where are we going?” Jenny repeated.

“Someplace safe.”

“I want to go home. That’s someplace safe.”

The woman shook her head. “No, sweetheart. Not anymore it isn’t.”

But Jenny was no longer in a believing mood. The distrust and paranoia that surrounded these people had infected her. “Is Thomas all right?”

“He’s fine for now.”

“That’s it? For now? I’ve had enough of your half answers. Who are you? What do you want with me? Who’s chasing Thomas?”

The woman rushed forward and grabbed Jenny’s arm. “I said let’s go,” she whispered as her nails dug into Jenny’s skin. “That means now. We’re friends. That’s all you have to know.”

A different car was waiting at the curb. Jenny slid into the backseat, along with the woman and the man who had taken her from school. The car pulled out before the door was shut. They’d driven a hundred yards before the driver yelled at everyone to get down. Two sedans approached, traveling at high speed. She could make out a pair of heads silhouetted in each. Jenny pressed her face into the woman’s lap. A moment later, she felt their car buffet as the sedans raced past. “Was that them?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Who are they?”

“I believe you met them last night.”

“How do you know…” Jenny didn’t know how to finish her sentence. How did they know about last night? Or how did they know it was the same people?

The woman laughed, and the laugh traveled round the car, pulling everyone in. “I’ve had a little practice in this matter,” she said afterward.

The driver turned his head and looked at the woman. “Jesus, Bobby, that was close.”

“Yes,” said Bobby Stillman. “They’re getting better.”